Champion trainer Chris Waller is relying on a team of ‘boys’ to capture his second Group 1 prize of the season.

Waller secured the season’s opening Group 1 event, the Winx Stakes at Randwick last Saturday, with a predominantly mare-based squad. For the upcoming Memsie Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield on Saturday, he will field three colts and two geldings.

Two of the five contenders, Angel Capital and Birdman, galloped at Caulfield on Tuesday morning on a track softened by overnight rain. Beiwacht, a scratching from the Winx Stakes due to an elevated temperature, also galloped and received Waller’s approval to compete.

Buckaroo and Autumn Boy will complete the five-horse team.

Rider bookings are yet to be finalised, but it has been confirmed that leading Sydney jockey James McDonald will be in Melbourne for the Memsie Stakes meeting.

“He will be here, but we haven’t worked out what he will be riding,” Waller commented. “We will keep a watch on the weather and what transpires.”

Waller considers Angel Capital a Group 1 winner in waiting, noting his considerable improvement since his initial run back in Sydney, where he finished third in the Missile Stakes (1200m) at Randwick on August 8.

“It’s only bad luck that is holding him back from being a multiple Group 1 winner,” Waller stated. “He’ll get his chance on Saturday, but I am a little bit concerned about the track. His better form is on better tracks, but the beauty of Caulfield is it does dry very well. The 1400 metres is a good distance for him, and he normally runs well at Caulfield. He’s come on well and if anything, better than I thought. He’s held his weight as he’s a mature colt now.”

Regarding Birdman, Waller said, “Birdman, Jye McNeil was aboard, and he said he felt great, had a good attitude. He found good form down here in the autumn and he carried it right through to Brisbane, winning the Doomben Cup. He resumes ahead of a good preparation, we hope.”

Buckaroo, who finished second first-up in last year’s Memsie Stakes, will be kept to shorter distances this preparation.

After securing second place behind Via Sistina in the Cox Plate, Buckaroo finished last in the Melbourne Cup. He returned in the autumn but was spelled after just two starts.

Buckaroo has completed three trials to prepare for his return.

“He won a jump-out at Flemington to give him some bragging rights last week and he’s come through that well,” Waller explained. “We will target shorter races with him this prep. He does hold an entry for the Caulfield Cup, but I think we will stick to 1800 metres, might stretch him to 2000 metres, but he has come back with plenty of enthusiasm.”

Waller mentioned that Autumn Boy, also scratched from the Winx Stakes last week, will remain in Melbourne after Saturday’s race.

“He’s a stallion, a multiple Group 1 winner, and we’re keen to get him to a Cox Plate,” Waller said. “There’s lots of options down here and once he gets out to 1600, 1800, 2000 metres, he will be a horse to be reckoned with.”

Waller confirmed that Beiwacht was cleared by his veterinary team after being withdrawn from the Winx Stakes with an elevated temperature.

“His blood profile was back to normal yesterday and the vets allowed us to gallop him this morning, and he galloped well,” Waller stated. “Providing he comes through the work well, we will accept with him on Wednesday.”

Check out the latest racing odds for the Memsie Stakes with leading Australian betting sites.

Earlier in the day, the news emerged of Minnesota moving on from corner Dwight McGlothern. Doing so meant jettisoning a 2023 UDFA.

More recently, the news involved a Vikings receiver who was part of that same cluster of undrafted talent.

Depth pass catcher Jeshaun Jones is being suspended for three games. Losing these games is as a result of violating the “NFL’s Substances of Abuse policy.” Not long after the news emerged, Ben Goessling (The Star Tribune) shared another factoid: “According to Hillsborough County court records, Vikings receiver Jeshaun Jones was arrested in April for refusing to submit to a breath test to determine his blood-alcohol level. He pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of reckless driving last month.”

Vikings Receiver Jeshaun Jones Done for Trio of Games

Quite possibly, the Vikings will opt to ride out the suspension before then making the roster call. Safe to say, though, that this is bad news for the player.

Jones finds himself on the fringe of the roster. At best, he’s the WR6. Sneaking onto the roster would have been due to some mixture of being able to help on specials and being able to grow into a role on offense. On Saturday, Jones did some really good things on the field but saw a dark cloud hang over his day due to a fumble that overshadowed a lot of the good things he did.

Jones tossed 5 catches for 63 yards onto the stat sheet. Most notably, he made an acrobatic catch when he was double covered.

Right now, the Vikings boast the current depth chart at receiver:

• WR1 Justin Jefferson
• WR2 Jordan Addison
• WR3 Jauan Jennings
• WR4 Tai Felton
• WR5 Myles Price
• WR6 Jeshaun Jones
• WR7 Dontae Fleming
• WR8 Dillon Bell
• WR9 Michael Briscoe
• WR10 Trayvon Rudolph
• WR11 Marcus Sanders Jr.
• WR12 Terrill Davis

Offering such a hearty helping of receiver options makes the margin for error thin.

Andrew Krammer (The Star Tribune) adds some more insight about how the offseason competition has been unfolding: “Jones, 26, spent the past two years on the Vikings practice squad and appeared likely to at least make that route again. He’s consistently been around WR6 in camp behind Jefferson, Addison, Jennings, Felton and Price. He can play Friday night in Denver, but suspension begins Aug. 30 thru Sept. 27.”

At the very least, Fleming and Bell will get a minor boost since they’re available while Jones is away. Of the two, Bell may boast a better shot at getting onto the roster due to a unique cluster of abilities that allows him to be used as a gadget guy.

Per Over the Cap, the Vikings had to send over $235,000 in guaranteed money to get Jones back in 2023. Kicking over such meaty money is suggestive of optimism about his potential.

What has then taken place has been an ongoing desire to work with the young receiver. He has mostly lived on the practice squad in 2024 and 2025. Last year, Jones got elevated for some work. Jones earned 7 snaps on specials teams, a spot where he returned a pair of punts for 5 total yards.

Jeshaun Jones is 26. He stands at 6’1″ and weighs 188 pounds. During the summer, Justin Jefferson mentioned him specifically as a receiver who had been improving.

Senior Editor for Vikings Territory & PurplePTSD . Twitter & Bluesky: @VikingsGazette. Email: k.joudry[at]vikingsterritory[dot]com. Canadian. Jude 1:24-25.

Moses Itauma says Filip Hrgovic’s comments are starting to “wind him up” before their IBF heavyweight world title fight on Saturday.

A victory at the O2 Arena would mean 21-year-old Itauma becomes the second youngest heavyweight world champion in history, behind only Mike Tyson.

The British fighter is the favouite going into the contest, but Hrgovic has been trying to taunt his rival by calling him a “kid” and “inexperienced”.

“I tell myself there’s nothing that this Hrgovic guy can do to get in my head but he’s starting to wind me up,” Itauma said.

“In an interview earlier, apparently he said I wake up and I just hug trees. He’s really starting to annoy me.

“In my mind if somebody’s trying to get one up on you, or trying to get in your head, it’s because they’re not confident in themselves. Obviously Hrgovic is a talker.”

Croatia’s Hrgovic, 13 years Itauma’s senior, has suggested that victory for his opponent could have a negative affect on Itauma’s future and that losing the fight would “save his soul”.

Power conferences are moving closer to banning former NFL players from playing within their membership across 64 schools with the SEC following the Big Ten by proposing conference rules to keep professional athletes from returning to play college sports.    

On Tuesday, the Big Ten became the first conference to levy significant penalties when its athletic directors and faculty athletics representatives unanimously approved a ban on former NFL players pursuing a fifth year of eligibility within their league. 

Sources tell CBS Sports the punishment is modeled on the NCAA’s ghost transfer rule. That rule bans coaches from 50% of games and carries a financial penalty on the school equal to 20% of its football budget.

The SEC announced its new policy later Tuesday after a meeting at the conference’s headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama. LSU was considering adding two former NFL players to its roster, but sources told CBS Sports’ John Talty the vote, like the Big Ten’s, was unanimous. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey will have wide-ranging powers to determine punishments for violating the new policy  

The SEC’s ban includes players from the NFL, NBA or WNBA. The Big Ten’s policy only mentioned NFL players.

The Big 12 is mulling a similar ban, and the ACC is set to meet Wednesday to discuss the subject, sources told CBS Sports. 

Big Ten, SEC decide to take action

The decisions by the Big Ten and SEC arrive amid growing legal uncertainty and a recent push from players who’ve signed NFL contracts trying to return to school and even seeking to enter the transfer portal — utilizing recent court rulings allowing players interested in a fifth year of eligibility to return to college football.

The Big Ten made it clear that its ban includes players who signed a professional contract, were on a professional roster, or declared for the NFL Draft without withdrawing.

Previously, under the Big Ten’s Sportsmanship Policy, standard disciplinary measures gave the Big Ten’s commissioner the leeway to levy immediate five-figure fines or hand down suspensions on his own authority, while major escalations — including extended sideline bans or institutional sanctions — required only the executive committee’s rubber stamp.

Such violations will be dealt with swiftly and decisively. That will surely be the case with other conferences if they implement the same rule, as many in the college athletics space expect. Lawsuits could follow from players — and potentially schools — seeking to circumvent these rules, though it appears unlikely to have much impact, at least within the Big Ten, at this point, given the unanimous approval among the 18 schools. 

“The lawsuits are circumventing the NCAA, but now when the league says you can’t do it, now you’re dealing with problems with your conference,” a power conference head coach told CBS Sports.

Do penalties go far enough? 

Several head coaches told CBS Sports they would like to see further punishment, including game forfeitures, if teams play a former professional athlete.

The SEC released a statement Tuesday night urging Congress to pass the Protect College Sports Act in September to better protect itself from such developments, but the league, along with other power conferences, is moving toward individual conference-wide rules and enforcement. 

It also potentially signals the first step toward the long-gestating proposals within the Big Ten and SEC to shoulder enforcement policies under a new rules-and-enforcement model separate from the NCAA. The conferences have been preparing self-governance models in case legislation in Washington, D.C. fails to become law later this year.

LSU moved quickly

LSU has been at the center of the recent controversy after Lane Kiffin secured commitments from two former NFL players — defensive tackle ZXavian Harris and former Cleveland Browns tight end Dae’Quan Harris. 

LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry has been supportive of Kiffin’s plan, though it remains to be seen whether he votes alongside his SEC colleagues this week to ban those players from participating in the SEC.

“There are a lot of parts of this I don’t like,” Kiffin said Tuesday on The Pat McAfee Show. “I don’t think professionals should come back to college sports and college football. But in this instance, these are not players who have gone on to play seasons professionally or randomly filed an injunction. This is part of a specific class that was ruled wrong by the NCAA that was supposed to be [five years to play five seasons].”

The NCAA approved a measure allowing players to play up to five seasons within a five-year span, but only for the Class of 2023 and later. That decision led to former players from the Class of 2022 who had exhausted their four years of eligibility to file lawsuits seeking temporary injunctions for a fifth season. 

Some were successful, leading many players to rejoin rosters across the country — though LSU is the only school so far to seek out players that landed on NFL rosters.

Nevertheless, there’s now growing doubt once again among athletic department, coaching and front-office sources about whether those players will actually be able to play at all this season.